Modern fertilizers and crop protection products applied to cultivated fields and beds used for food and forage production often are responsible for surface waterway pollution caused by the runoff of excess nutrient application not taken up by the crops. These chemicals, applied at great expense to the producer, often help to produce good crop yields in the short term, and do little to improve the soil structure and function over the long term. Because of the reduction of healthy soil management, this approach is a worldwide threat to food security in particular, and to the environment in general. With an ever-growing world population, continued current unsustainable soil management practices could make the 1930s U.S. dustbowl a minor event in agricultural and food production history.
There are several factors contributing to the inefficient use of agricultural chemicals. The geology of some farming sites such as concentrated clay or sand deposits is marginally beneficial in its natural state for the production of many cash row and specialty crops. Many different soil types can coexist on a contiguous plot of land, requiring specific site conditioning to equalize the soil growing condition for consistent crop planning.
The current practice of no-till farming employs a surface application of nutrients (whether dry or wet), relying on atmospheric moisture in the forms of rain and dew to drive the distribution of the nutrients below the packed surface where plant roots can make the most value of the product. Cases of long standing dry conditions make surfaces hydrophobic, causing the repulsion of rain and dew from percolation down into the soil. In addition, the repeated use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers on farmland has changed the characteristics of soil by reducing the biodiversity of beneficial macro- and microorganisms that maintain the healthy organic exchange required for good soil friability, proper drainage and water-holding characteristics, and strong natural crop yields.
Over the last seventy-five years, nitrogenous compounds such as ammonium nitrate, ammonium sulfate, urea formaldehyde, and others provided slow release nutrients to crop fields, as soil microorganisms degraded the compound bonds and made the nutrients available. These concentrates were intended to feed the growing crop for the duration of the growing season, rarely longer.
Farmers looking for ways to reverse this damage are moving back to the practices of organic enrichment of fields. Some farmers rotate crops, or under plant the main crop to encourage both soil diversity and natural nutrient supplementation from one crop year to the next. Where farms are not diversified with both field crop and animal production activity providing de novo organic inputs like animal manures, chaff from field crops, and abattoir residuals, slow degrading nutrient supplementation (preferably pre-composted, or at least compostable organic materials) otherwise must be acquired. Uses for spent coffee grounds have been disclosed in various patents and scientific literature as a substrate for co-composting with other organics to produce humus for land application (U.S. Pat. No. 6,488,732).
A need remains for a biological fertilizer that not only brings readily available nutrition for plant uptake and reduces the application of pesticides and chemicals, but also encourages the favorable re-characterization of soil condition overall as a soil mediator.